The study of British and Irish roads - their construction, numbering, history, mapping, past and future official roads proposals and general roads musings.
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Mark Hewitt wrote:...our roads tend to attack the hills head on regardless of slope.
This was one of the things noticed by one of my Italian relatives during his first visit to the UK. The other was the amber before green on traffic lights.
And a couple of years ago I discovered this beautiful section of road, while attempting to drive from Southampton to Frome using B roads and without looking at a map! For a few glorious curves, I felt like I was in Italy.
Big Nick wrote:So you're in Glasgow on the M8 going east and want to get onto the M77 going south. Trouble is it's all elevated and there's no direct link.... or is there?!
Very handy, but it was only installed in recent years, in expectation of the M74 extension opening! Some movements between the M8 and M77 used to be signposted as coming off one junction earlier, and using local roads to make the connection.
Mark Hewitt wrote:...our roads tend to attack the hills head on regardless of slope.
This was one of the things noticed by one of my Italian relatives during his first visit to the UK. The other was the amber before green on traffic lights.
And a couple of years ago I discovered this beautiful section of road, while attempting to drive from Southampton to Frome using B roads and without looking at a map! For a few glorious curves, I felt like I was in Italy.
Your comments remind me of Wales and the care home my grandmother lives in. The entrance is on a blind bend and further up is a hairpin. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.43062 ... .17z?hl=en
Look closely, the crematorium is next door to the nursing home... it has been commented on by members of the family!
Mark Hewitt wrote:Bwlch y Groes is a good example in Wales. See that hill? Let's go straight up it! In Italy .. there would be twisting hairpins all the way up.
And nowadays it would have been upgraded like this.
Big Nick wrote:
Your comments remind me of Wales and the care home my grandmother lives in.
From the location, I'd imagine that you've driven the A44. I took a detour along it on my way to Holyhead once, and the section west of the A470 was really good fun. There are a couple of bends there that can't be that far off 180.
QuietInRealLife wrote:Why were hairpin bends so common on the historical road network? Was it simply because most of the routes existed long before fast motorised traffic came along?
Hairpins tend to come into play when you want to scale a hill but keeping the gradient low (obviously). In fact historically they haven't been common in the UK even since Roman times our roads tend to attack the hills head on regardless of slope.
In order countries particularly continental Europe road building often includes a 'no more than x%' rule. Usually around 6-7% maximum which I heard was to do with hauling cannon and the likes. Which is why you see far more examples of roads that twist and turn up the hills.
Ah, i see. Cheers for the reply.
I suppose they're a good alternative to a tunnel, cutting or some form of grade seperation that might be either too expensive or too visually intrusive.
It doesn't even warrant an advance warning sign...
From above, that might be the most bizarre looking junction I've ever seen. Instead of a conventional layout, they do a classic British bodge that, like all British attempts at a half cloverleaf, manages to have looped slip roads that are paradoxically both huge & cramped at the same time. Even has a roundabout thrown in there for good measure. Mental.
It doesn't even warrant an advance warning sign...
From above, that might be the most bizarre looking junction I've ever seen. Instead of a conventional layout, they do a classic British bodge that, like all British attempts at a half cloverleaf, manages to have looped slip roads that are paradoxically both huge & cramped at the same time. Even has a roundabout thrown in there for good measure. Mental.
It's almost as if they had to build it with spare parts, or the designer wanted to include all of the features they liked.
The proposed A417 improvement at the Air Balloon on the Cotswold escarpment will be almost 180 degrees - and I bet it'll be the only one that's a modern HQDC (as well as being one of the steepest modern dual carriageways in the UK as well) if it is built:
Big Nick wrote:So you're in Glasgow on the M8 going east and want to get onto the M77 going south. Trouble is it's all elevated and there's no direct link.... or is there?!
I think this is the only place you can change directions on a UK motorway so quickly. I'm glad I actually wanted to make this move cos I would have been seriously annoyed otherwise!
roadtester wrote:The proposed A417 improvement at the Air Balloon on the Cotswold escarpment will be almost 180 degrees - and I bet it'll be the only one that's a modern HQDC (as well as being one of the steepest modern dual carriageways in the UK as well) if it is built:
Wow! That's pretty tight, but I guess if that was an interchange link, that would probably be seen as a nice generous curve.
I know the DMRB does allow for some ''relaxation'' in the design steps to try & ensure an absolute minimum level of safety is still met for when a road can't be built to standard, due to environmental or financial constraints. Be interesting to see a CGI mock up of the scheme rather than just the top down sketches which don't really give a feel as to how different this road will be to drive on.
Even has a roundabout thrown in there for good measure. Mental.
